News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1887-10-20
QUEER OLD GRAVEST0NES
QUAINT EPITAPHS IN A CONNEC
TICUT CEMETERY.
The Burying Place of Some of New
Haven's Il lrly GOVernOrs-Sam
PIES of Colonial Poetry.

PIES of Colonial Poetry.
Glancing to the right through the car
window just before the local express
rushes upon the little bridge over Mill
| Creek to the cast, and dashes on into the
village of New Milford, Conn, the New
| York bound passenger gets a glimpse OF
one of the quaintcst old graveyards in
| New England. It's brown, bats cared
gravcstOnes are strewn so near the rail
road track that the laundering express
seems to grind them Leneath its wheels.
Some of the gravestones have sunk
almost out of sight Others, with sides
| warped and crumpled, push their weather
stained noses up through the rank,
tangled grasses in defiance of times de
cay. A few lie prone in shame'aced
overthrow. The stranger, particularly
if he be au antiquarian, will find ralc
grubbing among these rusty old stones.
Some of the gravestones are nearly 25O
years old. Milford was settled in 1889,
and the settlers began TO die apparently
about as soon as they got here. A good
many never received the Christian burial,
as the Indians attended to their
obsequies without inviting the relatives
or persona. friends of the deceased.
One of the earliest inscriptions that is
/ entirely preserved is on a slab above the
/ rather pretentious tomb of Governor
Robert Treat. 1t reads:
Here Lyeth Inferred the Body of Coll
Robert Treat, Esq, Who Faithfully Served
This Colony in the Post of Governour and
Deputy Governour Near Ye Space of Thirty
| Years, and at the Age of -Four Score and
! Eight Years, Exchanged This Life for Better.
! July l., Ammo Dom. 17l0.
Johnathan Law, another Governor of
| the colony, is also buried in this grave
yard He was born in Milford on August
, 6, 1912, and died there on November 6,
1850. He was Governor from 1742 until
1850. His resting place, like Governor
Treats, is marked by one of the few fiat
tOmbstones above ground. Several
other colonial dignitaries have simple
headstones. On others the early obituary
eu!ogist has left his copious trade marks.
Here is sample:
1.-The truly honorable and pious Roger
Newton esq.
An officer of distinguished note in We ex-
petition l7U9 and 17lO, for many years one
of ye council AMI colonel of the Second regi-
ment of militia, judge of the court of common
pleas thirty three years. until he departed
this life, January 10, III, in the S1th year of
his age.
His mind returned to God, ,entombed here lies
The part the hero left beneath the skies,
! Newton steel; infexib,e from right,
In faith, i'll law, in equity, in fight
Another panegyrist relates that Isaac
miles, Esq, was a gentleman-
''Distingushed by manly sense,
Genuine intregrity and tfrmnesS,
In patriotism and in virtue.
After q life active in commerce
And in public emplo oyments,
A life very useful to his family
And to the public
And adds that at last this excellent
Gentleman-
Worn out by long and distressing asthma,
Borne with singular patience,
He died on the 18th OF November, 17S0,
In the 55th year of his age"
Mortuary poetry abounds. Some of it
is about as original and as startling as the
most versatile genius in this line pro-
duces. Neither young nor old have es-
capped it in the Milford graveyard. Elihu
Fowler, son of Jonathan Fowler, died on
October Q, 1889, three years and four
months old, and his untimely fate is thus
graphically epitomized:
His life a span, the mournful toll
Declares the exit of his soul!
Grim Death is come! His life is call'd
10 TAKE lCS 1llgnC-Jne means q Scald.
Ne wlo are young come learn your end,
By deep repentance make Christ your friend"
Over the grave "where lies the body
of Mrs. Phcbc Gillit, wife to Mr. Will
lam Gillit, Junr., y who died on February
10, 1856, twenty y-nine years old, is one of
the most remarkable tributes in the en-
tire graveyard. Manifestly it was writ
ten by her husband. Its orthography is
unusually eccentric even for those days
of arbitrary spelling. Here it is:
'Her Dying Words unto her husband are:
Refrain your passions! Why so much Dis
palTe.
It's the will of God! hope it's for the Best
For you For me! And for my mothers
less
To whome adue! To God and you
l now Commend that care
--Pattorn of Patriots to the end of life.
Now Ded, she speaks to every Living wife,
Peti Such Juels Should be laid in Dust
Men are Unworthy and the Lord is just"
Drollest and decidedly most realistic
of all the inscriptions are those on the
gravestones of Miss Mary Fowler and
Mrs. Sarah Bryan, consort of Captain
Richard Bryan. Miss Fowler was in
her 24th year when she died on Feb. 1,
1892. This is the inscription that was
composed in her honor:
Molly, though pleasant in her day
Was suddenly seized and sent away;
How soon she's ripe, how soon she's rotten,
Sent to the grave and soon forgotten.
-NetC York Commercial AdUertiSer.